CO 
CM 

m 


REESE  LIBRARY 

I  IK    THE 

UNIVERSITY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

Received 
Accessions  No.  ^ 


Jb 


PHILOSOPHY 


OF 


JAMES, 


AUTHOR  OF 

MORALISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY;"  "LECTURES  AND  MISCELLANIES;"  "THE 
NATURE  OF   EVIL;"   "CHRISTIANITY,    THE  LOGIC   OF  CREATION;" 
"SUBSTANCE  AND  SHADOW;"  UTHE  SECRET  OF  SWEDENBORG;" 
"SOCIETY  THE  REDEEMED  FORM  OF  MAN." 


A  DIGEST, 


BY    J.    A.    KELLOGG 


NEW  TORK : 

JOHN    W.    LOVELL    COMPANY, 
14  AND  16  VESEY  STREET. 


r,  1883, 
BY 

J.  A.  KKLLOGG. 
3 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 


No  attempt,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  ever  been 
made  to  present  a  collective  view  of  the  philosophy 
of  Mr.  Henry  James,  so  as  to  bring  it  within  the 
scope  of  the  general  reader.  The  distinguished 
philosopher  himself,  so  lately  gone  from  us,  seems 
not  to  have  aimed  to  give  his  whole  thought  any- 
where in  brief  compass.  The  essential  principles 
of  it  are  in  all  the  works  which  he  has  given  to 
the  press  from  time  to  time  during  the  last  thirty 
years,  and  there  is  a  more  or  less  complete  state- 
ment of  his  views  in  each  of  the  later  volumes;  yet 
a  satisfactory  insight  into  his  ideas  -cannot  well  be 
obtained  without  bringing  the  whole  of  his  writings 
under  one  survey. 

Laying  no  claim  to  a  perfect  comprehension  of 
this  philosophy  in  its  details,  I  shall  yet  endeavor, 
however  inadequately,  to  present  its  outlines,  hop_ 
ing  thereby  to  aid  in  drawing  attention  to  the 


4  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENR  Y  JAMES. 

works  of  one  who,  it  seems  to  some  of  us,  will  yet 
come  to  be  recognized  as  the  deepest  thinker  of  the 
century. 

"*  It  is  undeniable  that  Mr.  James  is  obscure,  unex- 
pectedly obscure,  if  I  may  use  the  expression.  His 
style  is  so  frank  and  alluring ;  he  gives  himself  so 
unreservedly  to  his  readers,  is  so  profuse  in  his 
illustrations,  and  so  evidently  master  of  his  subject; 
he  berates  us  so  cordially  for  our  stupidity  in  not 
having  always  seen  the  truths  which  he  demon- 
strates, and  for  our  hard-heartedness  in  not  having 
obeyed  them,  that  we  wonderingly  say  to  ourselves, 
*  Here  at  last  we  must  have  found  an  unerring 
guide  :  let  us  confidently  give  ourselves  up  to  him, 
and  he  will  lead  us  into  the  innermost  courts  of 
truth.'  But  ere  long  we  become  bewildered,  we 
know  not  whither  we  are  going ;  we  are  dizzy,  we 
are  blinded,  we  hear  nothing,  we  see  nothing ;  and 
at  last  we  refuse  to  advance  another  step  until  we 
find  upon  what  ground  we  are  treading.  We  doubt 
at  first  whether  this  may  not  be  owing  to  some  lack 
in  ourselves,  but  by  and  by  we  are  fain  to  divide 
the  fault  between  the  difficulties  of  the  subject  and 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  treated. 

Mr.  James  looks  at  creation  instinctively  from 
the  creative  side,  and  this  of  itself  has  a  tendency  to 
put  him  at  a  remove  from  his  readers.  The  usual 
problem  is:  Given  the  creation,  to  find  the  Creator; 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

to  Mr.  James  it  is:  Given  the  Great or^ 
creation.  God  is  ;  of  His  being  there  is  no  doubt, 
but  who  and  what  are  we  ?  Another  cause  of  obscu- 
rity is  Mr.  James's  use  of  words.  To  many  of  his 
words  he  gives  a  signification  of  his  own,  and  we 
should  get  on  well  enough  with  that  if  he  always 
kept  to  it ;  but  ever  and  anon  he  slips  back  into  the 
old  usage,  with  the  object  perhaps  of  coming  more 
closely  to  the  ordinary  method  of  thinking.  The 
word  morality,  with  its  adjective  moral,  is  a  verita- 
ble-will-o'-the-wisp, until  one  has  obtained  the  clew 
to  the  whole  thought,  and  has  learned  to  accom- 
modate its  significance  to  the  point  at  the  moment 
in  view.  Still  another  and  most  fruitful  cause  of 
misapprehension  is  the  fact  tnat  to  Mr.  James 
the  natural  world  is  the  correspondence  of  the 
spiritual  world,  making  it  thus  correct  to  use  the 
same  terms  in  speaking  of  each  ;  but  it  is  also  the 
inverse  correspondence,  so  that  the  terms  frequent- 
ly mean  exactly  the  opposite  when  used  of  one  that 
they  mean  when  used  of  the  other :  as  in  viewing 
objects  in  a  mirror  the  right  is  left  and  the  left 
right,  the  east  is  west  and  the  west  east,  et  ccetera. 
And,  in  addition  to  all,  one  cannot  help  suspecting 
that  the  author  loves  paradox  for  its  own  sake — 
prefers  it  to  a  more  direct  method  of  stating  his 
thought. 

Mr.  James,  as  is  well  known,  bases  his  philosophy 


O  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

upon  ideas  derived  from  Swedenborg,  but  the 
philosophy  itself  comes  not  from  Swedenborg :  it 
is  profoundly  original.  A  previous  acquaintance 
with  the  writings  of  the  Swedish  seer  is  not  neces- 
sary to  the  comprehension  of  it,  but  it  is  a  great  aid 
to  such  comprehension.  It  enables  one  to  read 
between  the  lines,  and  also  explains  not  a  little  of 
the  phraseology. 

With  this  preliminary,  I  proceed  to  give,  making 
free  and  constant  use  of  his  own  expressions,  a  synopsis 
of  what  seems  to  me,  after  a  study  of  many  years, 
to  be  Mr.  James's  philosophy  of  life. 

God  is  Life  in  Himself.  All  life  is  one,  therefore 
there  can  be  no  other  being  in  the  universe  having 
life  in  himself.  Creation  is  not  the  production  of  a 
new  being :  it  is  a  manifestation  of  the  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Being,  which  is  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting, and  this  manifestation  is  in  man.  Creation 
implies  God's  communication  of  Himself  to  the 
creature.  It  does  not  imply  a  transfer  of  life  from 
God  Himself  to  another :  that  would  be  to  divide 
life,  which  is  absurd.  God  cannot  create  a  being 
who  shall  be  independent  of  Himself.  To  create  a 
being  who  should  have  life  in  himself  would  be  to 
create  God. 

God's  life  finds  its  activity  in  love.  He  cannot 
love  Himself,  for  that  were  self-love.  He  must  love 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 


that  which  is  the  total  opposite  of 
the  total  opposite  of  Himself  must  be  evil,  since  "He 
is  the  all  of  goodness.  Yet  out  of  that  which  is 
evil  He  can  make  a  creature  who  will  react  against 
the  evil  and  aspire  of  his  own  free-will  to  a  con- 
junction with  his  Creator,  to  whom  then  He  will  be 
able  to  communicate  the  blessedness  of  His  own 
life  with  ever-increasing  bountifulness  to  all  eter- 
nity. 

Creation  is  a  composite,  not  a  simple  movement. 
It  provides  first  for  the  creature's  subjective  exist- 
ence, and  then  for  his  objective  being.  We  must 
first  be  endowed  with  inalienable  self-consciousness 
in  order  to  be  subsequently  qualified  for  God's 
spiritual  fellowship.  The  creature  must  have  a  life 
as  distinctively  his  own  as  God's  life  is  distinctively 
His  own.  This  life  is  given  to  him  by  means  of 
Nature.  A  natural  form  is  a  derived  form.  It  in- 
volves the  relation  between  a  common  nature  and 
an  individual  subject  of  that  nature.  Everything 
in  nature  is  a  particular  form  of  a  common  sub- 
stance. 

Nature  is  the  exact  opposite  of  God.  God  is  the 
One  Life.  He  has  no  fellow  or  equal.  Nature  is 
perfect  community,  and  this  community  limits  as  it 
confers  all  individual  faculty  and  enjoyment.  God 
is  ;  nature  exists.  Existence  is  the  manifestation  of 
being  ;  it  means  the  going  forth  of  being  into  form. 


8  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

Its  nature  is  strictly  not  to  be,  as  that  of  God  is  to 
be.  The  animating  principle  of  Nature  is  self-love. 
Nature  is  the  preliminary  realm  of  formation, 
'on  which  the  actuality  of  creation  is  suspended. 
Creation  itself  is  an  invisible  process  by  which  the 
creature  becomes  ultimately  qualified  for  conscious 
unity  with  Goodness,  Truth,  and  Power.  It  takes 
place  exclusively  in  the  creature's  consciousness.  Out- 
side of  God  there  is  nothing  real  in  the  universe 
excepting  the  human  consciousness.  The  great 
spheres  of  space  and  time  themselves  fall  within 
that  consciousness,  not  without  it.  There  never 
was  a  space  where  nor  a  time  when  things  began 
to  be.  Time  and  space  are  involved  in  existence. 
Eternity  and  infinity  transcend  it.  Eternity  is  not 
time  without  end,  nor  infinity  space  without  end. 
Eternity  is  the  denial  of  time,  infinity  the  disappear- 
ance of  space.  We  can  obtain  a  conception  of  this 
metaphysical  io^ea  by  means  of  some  familiar  ex- 
periences. When  in  suspense  or  suffering  we  are 
conscious  of  every  minute  in  the  hour  we  have 
an  acute  realization  of  Time  ;  when  through  happi- 
ness the  minutes  glide  so  swiftly  that  the  hour  has 
gone  ere  it  seems  scarcely  to  have  begun,  we  get 
a  glimpse  of  Eternity.  So  in  our  feeling  of  utter 
nearness  to  an  absent  friend  and  absolute  remote- 
ness from  a  stranger  at  our  side  we  have  a  percep- 
tion of  Infinity. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  9 

Consciousness  claims  the  totality  of  the  sensible 
universe  as  the  indispensable  realm  of  the  me.  The 
visible  world  is  but  man  turned  inside  out  that  he 
may  be  revealed  to  himself.  All  that  sensibly  exists 
is  but  the  mind's  furniture.  The  mineral  life  is  the 
fcetal  condition  of  humanity,  the  me  getting  body. 
Its  character! stic  is  inertia,  and  it  gives  us  the  fixity 
which  is  necessary  that  we  may  have  a  contrast  for 
our  coming  freedom.  The  vegetable  life  is  theme 
coming  to  sensation  ;  in  the  animal  life  the  me  has 
attained  to  volition.  Man  reproduces  in  himself  all  / 
mineral,  all  vegetable,  and  all  animal  forms.  He  is 
fixed  as  the  rock,  unstable  as  water ;  hard  as  the 
iron,  sensitive  as  the  flower  ;  indolent  as  the  sloth, 
busy  as  the  bee ;  blind  as  the  bat,  far-sighted  as  the 
eagle ;  venomous  as  the  serpent,  harmless  as  the 
dove.  All  the  antagonisms  of  nature  are  united  in 
his  form.  Thus  man  is  the  measure  of  all  the  in- 
ferior things  of  the  universe  ;  the  master-key  which 
fits  all  the  wards  of  the  lower  creation  and  makes 
its  mysteries  intelligible.  When  science  shall  have 
developed  all  nature's  resources  of  use  and  orna- 
ment to  man,  then  man  will  perceive  an  exact 
correspondence  between  himself  spiritually  viewed 
on  the  one  side  and  the  entire  phenomena  of  the 
visible  universe  on  the  other.  Excepting  as  part 
of  the  human  consciousness,  this  natural  universe 
has  no  reality  to  the  Divine  mind.  Man  alone  is 


10  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

objective  to  God,  and  the  rose  and  the  horse,  for 
example,  exist  to  him  only  as  constituent  portions 
of  our  mental  structure,  without  which  the  human 
mind  would  be  to  that  extent  impoverished  or  out 
of  correspondence  with  infinite  being — for  as  in- 
ferior nature  corresponds  to  man,  so  human  nature 
corresponds  to  God. 

Man's  natural  individuality  possessing  thus  every 
conceivable  characteristic  of  universal  life,  forms  a 
basis  broad  enough  to  image  the  Creator's  infini- 
tude. But  man  has  besides  this  a  distinctive  differ- 
ence from  the  lower  forms  of  life.  He  alone  has 
the  power  to  separate  himself  from  his  mere  animal 
conditions,  to  postpone  his  natural  appetites  to  his 
individual  attractions.  He  is  free  to  obey  other 
motives  and  aspirations  than  those  which  date  from 
his  animal  organization ;  he  can  restrain  his  bodily 
appetites  within  rational  limits,  or  else  urge  them 
to  the  most  injurious  excess.  It  is  this  faculty 
which  makes  him  man  and  stamps  him  the  only 
fitting  tabernacle  of  God.  The  animal  may  obey 
his  nature  without  degradation,  but  if  a  man  give 
himself  up  to  his  nature  he  dehumanizes  himself. 
The  animal  and  vegetable  have  no  deeper  life  than 
that  of  their  nature.  It  is  their  glory  to  exhibit 
their  natural  force  in  uncurbed  luxuriance,  but  it  is 
the  glory  of  man  to  transcend  his  nature  and  make 
it  obey  an  individuality  above  itself.  The  mineral 


It  UNIVERSITY 

\X         p  0 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  jMCgSt^  I 

is  subject  to  the  vegetable,  the  vegetable  to  the 
animal,  and  the  animal  to  man.  Man  alone  is  sub- 
ject to  no  external  power. 

This  state  of  conscious  freedom  arising  from 
man's  sense  of  ownership  of  himself  Mr.  James 
terms  morality,  which  he  calls  the  distinctive  badge 
of  human  nature.  It  is  the  point  of  individuation 
of  human  nature  from  merely  animal  nature,  and 
the  point  of  identification  of  all  its  subjects  with 
one  another.  The  animal  life  is  the  instinctive  life : 
in  it  the  passions  rule  the  intellect.  In  the  moral 
life,  the  intellect  rules  the  passions/!*" 

Self-consciousness,  which  is  the  natural  human 
form  of  consciousness,  is  born  of  the  union  of  the 
will  and  the  instinct.  Man  thus  becomes  both 
objective  and  subjective  to  himself.  He  is  the 
subject  of  his  nature  in  the  realm  of  sense,  and  the 
object  of  it  in  the  realm  of  ideas. 

But  the  whole  of  man  is  not  comprised  in  nature 
and  morality.  Man  is  a  unit  of  two  forces :  a 
material  force  which  finites  him,  and  a  spiritual  one 
which  infinites  him.  In  the  human  consciousness 
God  and  nature  meet.  Human  nature  has  the 
literally  awful  grandeur  of  being  the  sole  link  be- 
tween Creator  and  creature.  Its  organic  element 
relates  us  to  the  outward  arnd  finite,  i.e.,  to  nature, 
and  gives  us  fixity  ;  its  distinctively  human  element 
relates  us  to  the  inward  and  infinite,  i.e.,  to  God, 


12  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

and  gives  us  freedom.  But  we  always  identify 
ourselves  with  nature  and  not  with  God.  The  me 
absorbs  the  whole  realm  of  the  finite,  the  outer 
sphere  of  consciousness;  the  not-me,  the  realm  of 
the  infinite,  its  inner  sphere.  The  human  conscious- 
ness unites  these  two  spheres.  It  identifies  itself 
instinctively  with  the  outer  sphere,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  dominates  it.  It  worships  the  inner 
sphere,  while  at  the  same  time  it  recognizes  itself, 
by  means  of  the  intellect,  as  essentially  belonging  to 
it.  We  identify  ourselves  with  our  organization 
because  that  is  the  sole  ground  of  our  conscious- 
ness, and  it  is  our  consciousness  alone  which  gives 
us  an  entity  distinct  from  God.  This  is  what  dif- 
ferences Mr.  James's  view  from  pantheism.  Pan- 
theism makes  the  creature  continuous,  as  it  were, 
from  the  Creator ;  Mr.  James  separates  him  by  all 
the  breadth  of  his  consciousness. 

The  truth  is  that  God  alone  is  life,  and  that  He 
communicates  life  to  man.  This  truth  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  feel  on  penalty  of  losing  our  free- 
dom. If  we  felt  that  our  life  was  other  than  our 
own  we  should  lose  all  our  characteristic  human 
activity,  should  consider  ourselves  merely  puppets, 
and  wait  to  be  acted  upon  ;  but  while  it  is  death  to 
feel  it,  it  is  life  to  believe  it,  and  it  is  only  through 
believing  it  that  our  reason  can  be  kept  ever  sane 
and  progressive,  for  it  is  the  truth  of  truths,  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  1 3 

the  reason  can  be  nourished  only  by  truth.  It 
wastes  away  and  dries  up  when  fed  by  falsehoods. 

The  actual  adjustment  of  the  finite  with  the  in- 
finite  mind  is  the  total  secret  of  human  history  :  it 
constitutes  both  the  universal  and  particular  scope 
of  what  we  call  progress,  meaning  by  that  man's 
providential  destiny  upon  earth,  or  the  complete 
education  of  the  race. 

Man  is  the  only  offspring  of  Deity,  because  he 
alone  is  subject  to  an  ideal  selfhood.  The  dis- 
tinctive trait  of  man  is  not  subjection  to  nature,  for 
the  vegetable  is  more  entirely  the  subject  of  its 
natural  organization  ;  and  it  is  not  subjection  to 
society,  for  many  of  the  animals — the  bee,  the  ant, 
the  beaver — excel  the  best  of  men  in  this  respect : 
it  is  obedience  to  his  own  ideas  of  goodness,  truth, 
and  beauty.  His  activity  lies  within  himself,  and 
acknowledges  an  ideal  end.  Even  vice  and  crime 
show  this.  Vice  expresses  man's  attempt  to  actual- 
ize his  ideal  life  without  the  concurrence  of  nature ; 
crime,  his  attempt  to  actualize  it  without  the  con- 
currence of  society. 

Our  animal  consciousness  is  constituted  by  our 
susceptibility  to  pleasure  and  pain.  The  vegetable 
life  is  that  of  pleasure  alone.  It  is  the  oppugnancy 
of  pleasure  and  pain  which  lifts  us  from  the  vege- 
table existence  to  the  animal.  It  is  by  means  of  the 
oppugnancy  of  good  and  evil,  and  their  equilibrium 


14  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

in  the  human  constitution,  that  our  moral  life  is 
evolved.  We  inherit  a  liability  to  all  that  is  good 
and  to  all  that  is  evil  in  human  nature.  To  some 
qualities  we  are  more  susceptible  undoubtedly 
than  to  others,  but  we  are  susceptible  to  all  on 
presentation  of  adequate  motives.  Our  wills  then 
can  disturb  the  equilibrium,  and  incline  our  actions 
to  one  side  or  the  other.  If  our  inheritance  over- 
powers our  will  we  are  no  longer  credited  with,  the 
responsibility  of  our  actions,  as  we  see  in  the  un- 
fortunate victims  of  klopemania.  The  me  cannot 
survive  a  permanent  disturbance  of  equilibrium. 

Morality,  therefore,  does  not  characterize  man 
spiritually,  as  is  generally  supposed,  but  only  natu- 
rally. The  two  moral  poles,  the  poles  of  good  and 
evil,  are  alike  requisite  to  humanity.  Neither  of 
them  by  itself  defines,  it  as  the  North  Pole  by  itself 
or  the  South  Pole  by  itself  does  not  define  the 
earth.  This  balance  of  opposing  forces  is  necessary 
to  give  us  our  moral  consciousness. 

But  if  morality  is  not  our  true  life  it  is  the  funda- 
mental germ  out  of  which  our  true  or  spiritual  life 
grows.  Its  function  is  to  lift  man  out  of  the  bond- 
age of  nature  that  he  may  become  freely  subject 
to  God.  But  how  shall  the  creature,  immersed  in 
his  natural  consciousness,  filled  with  the  instinct  of 
self-love,  unable  to  know  God  intuitively,  come  to 
a  recognition  of  the  Divine  life  which  lies  deeper 


<^SE  Lli 

V^         fit    rn-. 


/,'    ^'  OF    THE 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAfrSR1  VEE^Il 


within  him  than  his  nature  ?  He  is  endowed 
a  double  consciousness.  He  comes  to  know  him- 
self at  first  as  having  a  community  with  his  kind; 
then,  feeling  himself  finited  on  every  hand  by  this 
natural  community,  he  has  a  consciousness  of  death 
and  a  profound  instinct  leads  him  to  believe  in  a 
positive  good  without  contrast  of  evil.  Thus  is 
generated  conscience.  Conscience  is  the  first  en- 
trance of  God  into  the  human  life.  It  is  His  voice  J 
in  our  bosom,  saying  :  I  make  you  each  conscious 
of  a  power  of  being  or  suffering  infinitely  transcend- 
ing your  power  of  doing  or  enjoying,  and  this 
power  it  is  which  alone  allies  you  with  God.  Thus 
the  moral  element  in  us  becomes  disengaged  from 
the  physical.  We  cease  to  recognize  ourselves  as 
primarily  under  obligation  to  nature,  and  come  to 
look  upon  ourselves  as  subject  to  an  inward  and 
infinite  ideal. 

Conscience^ is  not  a  revelation  to  the  intellect. 
It  does  not  tell  us  what  is  wrong  and  what  is  right. 
J/  It  is^simjply  a  perception  of  the  inextinguishable 
contrariety  of  good  and  evil.  It  is  an  instinct  of 
the  soul,  not  an  intuition  of  the  reason.  Its  func- 
tion is  to  make  manifest  to  us  the  death  which  we 
have  in  ourselves,  the  evil  which  is  in  our  natural 
make-up,  and  so  prepare  us  to  receive  the  life  which 
we  have  in  God.  Through  it  all  our  unconscious 
imperfections  become  luminous  to  our  conscious 


l6  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

self.  Its  invariable  sentence  is  death,  and  this 
death  to  ourselves  we  are  obliged  to  undergo  be- 
fore we  can  become  emancipated  from  the  shackles 
of  the  finite,  and  rise  into  the  living  discernment 
and  participation  of  the  infinite. 

The  first  effect  of  conscience,  however,  is  to  cause 
us  to  aspire  after  a  personal  righteousness  which 
shall  bring  us  into  direct  spiritual  relations  with 
God.  But  the  more  we  strive,  the  less  we  succeed. 
A  genuine  conscience  of  sin  is  out  of  all  ratio  to  the 
amount  of  evil  actually  done,  much  more  actually 
doing.  We  all  know  that  they  who  habitually  do 
the  least  evil  have  the  tenderest  consciences,  and 
they  who  do  the  most,  the  bluntest.  A  conscience 
of  sin  always  originates  in  a  judgment  which  the 
soul  passes  upon  itself  for  having  actually  done 
wrong,  but  it  ends  in  a  conviction  of  one's  natural 
unlikeness  to  God.  In  the  spiritual  man  the  subtler 
consciousness  of  evil-being  has  utterly  consumed 
the  grosser  consciousness  of  evil-doing. 

But  conscience  can  go  no  further  than  to  make 
manifest  to  us  our  inward  destitution.  It  cannot 
•  tell  us  where  to  find  our  true  or  spiritual  life,  be- 
cause it  is  itself  a  natural  quality  and  nature  knows 
nothing  of  spirit.  The  natural  and  the  spiritual 
worlds  are  both  embraced  in  the  human  conscious- 
ness, the  former  being  the  lower  region  of  the 
mind  and  the  latter  the  upper,  but  they  do  not  con- 


If  ViXlVMtSITTI 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAM^ 

nect  with  each  other  by  continuity :  they  connect 
by  correspondence,  else  there  would  be  no  dis- 
crimination of  base  from  building-.  The  natural 
world  is  not  the  real  world :  it  is  but  the  image  of 
the  real  world.  The  infinite  is  the  sole  reality 
which  underlies  all  finite  appearance.  As  books 
presuppose  wit  in  the  reader,  so  the  natural  world 
presupposes  a  spiritual  world  which  will  explain 
it,  and  it  is  utterly  unintelligible  unless  light  be 
thrown  upon  it  from  this  spiritual  world.  This 
light  is  Revelation.  We  as  creatures  can  have  no 
intuitive  knowledge  of  uncreated  things :  we  can 
only  know  them  through  our  reason,  and  our  reason 
must  be  enlightened  by  revelation.  Experience 
gives  us  self-knowledge  ;  revelation,  divine  know- 
ledge. An  unrevealed  God  is  practically  no 
God  at  all  to  the  human  understanding.  But  re- 
velation is  not  information.  Information  means 
knowledge  which  comes  up  to  the  soul  from 
the  senses ;  revelation,  knowledge  which  comes 
down  to  the  senses  from  the  soul.  To  reveal  is  to 
unveil  what  has  been  hitherto  concealed  under  a 
veil  of  contrary  appearance.  Revelation  is  an  in- 
verted image  of  the  truth ;  information,  a  direct 
image.  If  a  direct  knowledge  of  God  were  im- 
parted to  us  it  would  leave  the  human  mind  no 
chance  to  grow ;  hence  revelation  is  symbolic,  thus 
shielding  and  fostering  human  freedom.  The  re- 


18  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

ligious  history  of  the  race  is  the  veritable  history 
of  the  human  mind,  and  this  history  involves  the 
doctrine  of  a  Divine  revelation. 

Revelation  has  taken  many  forms,  but  the  great 
revelation  is  in  Christianity.  Christianity  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  eternal  and  perfect  union  of  God 
and  man  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  Its  spiritual 
meaning  is  that  human  nature  itself  is  the  adequate 
and  ample  abode  of  perfect  love  and  wisdom,  that 
the  infinite  and  finite  are  in  complete  union  in  man. 
It  is  a  recognition  of  God  in  man,  in  distinction 
from  natural  religion  or  paganism  which  is  an 
acknowledgment  of  God  in  nature.  The  Divine 
life  in  man,  which  grows  out  of  the  conjunction  of 
the  infinite  Divine  Love  with  our  finite  natural 
loves,  was  perfectly  manifested  in  Christ.  In  Him 
for  the  first  time  the  private  human  bosom  was 
brought  into  perfect  experimental  accord  with  in. 
finite  Love.  Spiritually  viewed,  Christ  is  the  in- 
most and  vital  selfhood  of  every  individual.  What- 
ever life  was  in  him  actually  is  potentially  in  all 
men.  The  incarnation  is  a  revelation  of  the  true 
principles  of  creative  order,  the  order  that  binds 
the  universe  of  existence  to  its  source.  It  is  the 
sole  philosophic  secret  of  creation,  and  the  Chris- 
tian facts  in  embodying  the  secret  in  a  cipher  until 
such  time  as  the  human  mind  had  grown  wise 
enough  by  experience  to  unriddle  it,  impose  a  defi- 
nite end  to  men's  crude  speculations. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  1 9 

Mr.  James  holds  the  recorded  facts  of  Christ's 
life  to  be  authentic,  because  he  sees  them  to  be  the 
needful  exponents  of  otherwise  undiscoverable  and 
inconceivable  spiritual  truth.  He  considers  them, 
indeed,  to  be  the  only  facts  of  human  history  which 
are  not  in  themselves  illusory,  because  they  alone 
base  a  new  creation  in  man  to  which  every  fibre  of 
his  nature  eagerly  responds. 

Christ  came  in  history,  because  it  is  always  in  the 
course  of  the  history  of  the  human  heart  that  it  de* 
sires  this  knowledge  of  a  possible  Divine  life.  It 
is  not  until  conscience  has  disclosed  to  us  our  need 
that  we  care  to  know  the  remedy  for  it. 

We  have  seen  that  man  is  a  unit  of  two  forces: 
one  infinite  and  Divine,  the  other  finite  and  natu- 
ral; and  that  the  human  consciousness  is  so  framed 
that  it  identifies  itself  with  nature,  else  it  would 
have  no  way  of  distinguishing  itself  from  God — if 
we  were  good  spontaneously  we  should  simply  be 
God,  because  all  goodness  is  one.  Also  we  have 
seen  that  our  natural  selfhood  is  composite,  con- 
sisting of  a  universal  substance  which  is  the  same 
in  every  one,  and  a  particular  form  which  differences 
its  subject  from  others,  and  that  out  of  this  duality 
the  natural  consciousness  is  generated.  We  have 
seen  further  that  man  recognizes  his  selfhood  in  his 
private  force,  feels  a  freedom  to  renounce  the  do- 
minion of  his  inherited  nature  and  act  from  the 


2O  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

promptings  of  his  own  individual  will,  and  so  at- 
tains to  moral  consciousness,  which  separates  him 
from  the  lower  existences  and  identifies  him  with 
his  kind.  Thus  far  we  have  only  demonstrated  the 
natural  creation,  which  is  God's  descending  move- 
ment by  which  the  creature  becomes  posited  and 
obtains  a  life  of  his  own  as  the  basis  of  a  divine  life 
which  is  to  become  his  in  the  end.  The  next  and 
final  creative  movement  is  the  ascending  one,  the 
spiritual,  which  is  the  true  creation. 

Through  the  spiritual  creation  we  become  gradu- 
ally freed  from  our  inherent  corruption  and  death, 
and  progressively  invested  with  God's  own  infinity 
and  eternity.  This  implies  the  Creator's  communi- 
cation of  Himself  to  the  creature,  which  communi- 
cation is  contingent  upon  the  creature's  capacity 
of  reception.  God  cannot  communicate  His  gifts 
to  man  except  in  an  inward  way,  or  through  the 
man  himself.  We  have  first  the  consciousness  of 
a  selfhood  distinct  from  God,  and  then  gradually 
we  attain  to  the  consciousness  of  a  selfhood  united 
with  God.  Man's  infinite  selfhood  becomes  evolved 
by  the  elimination  of  his  finite  selfhood.  While 
the  latter  exists  in  full  force  he  remains  unconscious 
of  the  former,  and  it  is  only  as  he  puts  the  finite 
selfhood  from  him  accordingly  that  the  true  or 
infinite  one  flows  in  and  becomes  established. 
Spiritual  creation  first  shapes  itself  to  discriminate 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  21 

the  Divine  element  from  all  lower  and  temporary 
elements.  The  Divine  element  in  man,  Mr.  James 
calls  the  truly-human  element,  because  it  is  in  man 
only,  and  not  in  the  other  subjects  of  nature. 
While  the  natural  life  controls  his  action,  man  can- 
not realize  the  life  he  has  in  God.  If  it  weren  ot  for 
the  perpetual  disappointment  he  encounters  in  the 
pursuit  both  of  pleasure  and  righteousness,  he 
would  sink  into  the  abject  votary  of  nature  and  his 
fellow-man,  and  the  immortal  instincts  he  derives 
from  God  would  expire ;  but  these  disappoint- 
ments guard  the  interests  of  his  unconscious 
destiny. 

The  growth  from  the  natural  to  the  spiritual  life 
is  Regeneration.  As  we  are  born  into  self-love, 
we  must  be  re-born  if  we  come  into  universal  love. 
The  regenerated  man  is  the  truly  created  man. 
Regeneration  begins  when  a  man  abstains  from 
doing  evil,  when  tempted,  out  of  reverent  regard  to 
the  will  of  God  ;  or  when,  some  hereditary  evil  dis- 
position having  come  to  the  surface  in  act,  he  sees 
it  in  its  true  light,  inwardly  loathes  it,  and  out- 
wardly averts  himself  from  it.  To  bring  this  about 
is  the  office  of  conscience.  But  for  conscience,  we 
should  go  on  feeling  that  life  is  as  it  seems ;  we 
should  never  learn  that  our  true  individuality  is 
our  regenerate  spiritual  one,  and  not  the  generic 
moral  one  which  we  derive  from  our  ancestry. 


22  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

When  a  man  is  regenerating,  he  acts  from  a  sense 
of  duty  merely  ;  when  he  is  regenerated,  he  acts 
from  attraction  or  spontaneously.  Our  life  has 
three  degrees :  First,  instinct,  in  which  our  passions 
rule  us;  second,  the  moral  or  voluntary  life,  in 
which  the  intellect  rules ;  third,  the  spontaneous 
life,  in  which  the  true  individuality  has  become  pro- 
nounced, and  man  acts  from  the  promptings  of  his 
heart,  which  are  then  in  entire  accord  with  the 
judgments  of  his  intellect. 

In  the  instinctive  life  man  seems  to  himself  to  be 
free,  but  is  not.  He  acts  from  pleasure  and  thinks 
he  is  acting  from  his  own  private  will,  while  he  is 
in  reality  acting  from  his  inherited  nature.  This  is 
the  exact  inverse  form  of  the  Divine  life.  God  is  all 
individuality.  He  has  no  identity  with  other  exist- 
ences, consequently  His  life  is  always  spontaneous. 
He  is  the  controlling  power,  and  the  universe  is 
controlled  by  Him.  If,  then,  man's  private  power, 
his  selfhood,  which  is  his  natural  individuality,  is 
under  the  control  of  an  outside  force,  the  force  of 
his  nature,  he  presents  that  exact  contrariety  to 
God  which  makes  his  subsequent  spiritual  creation 
possible. 

In  the  moral  life  man  not  only  seems  to  be  free, 
but  he  really  is  free  to  a  certain  extent.  He  is  free 
to  act  according  to  his  reason,  but  this  very  free- 
dom implies  a  coercion  of  a  part  of  himself.  He 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  2$ 

must  make  his  passions  obey  his  judgment ;  he 
must  force  himself  away  from  what  he  thinks  evil 
to  what  he  considers  good.  In  the  spontaneous 
life,  however,  man  is  really  free.  Heart  and  head 
are  in  accord.  The  heart  prompts  what  the  head 
approves,  and  the  head  furthers  what  the  heart 
prompts.  This  is  the  spiritual  life. 

When  we  act  naturally  or  morally,  the  motive  of 
our  action  lies  without  ourselves,  in  our  physical 
organization  or  our  fellow-man;  when  we  act  spon- 
taneously, the  motive  of  our  action  lies  within 
ourselves.  Moral  existence  is  the  alliance  of  an 
inward  subject  and  an  outward  object ;  spiritual 
existence,  of  an  outward  subject  and  an  inward 
object  In  moral  existence  the  universal  dominates 
the  individual ;  in  spiritual  existence  the  case  is  re- 
versed, and  the  outward  serves  the  inward. 

In  our  moral  experience  begins  our  progress 
toward  God.  It  is  the  first  step  out  of  our  animal 
life  of  instinct  towards  the  human  life  of  spon- 
taneity. It  gives  us  a  sense  of  alienation  from 
(otherness  than]  our  Maker,  against  which  we  in- 
stinctively react,  and  seek  to  reunite  ourselves 
with  God.  When  man  is  at  discord  with  his 
inmost  self  he  feels  the  lack  of  peace  which  no 
gratification  of  his  outward  life  can  satisfy.  But 
the  direct  efforts  which  the  moral  subject  makes 
to  readjust  himself  to  his  creative  source  cannot 


24  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

spiritually  avail  him,  because  his  voluntary  activity 
tends  constantly  to  enhance  his  conscious  remote- 
ness from  the  infinite  rather  than  to  abridge  it. 
The  more  he  strives  the  more  disheartening  is  his 
sense  of  his  utter  inward  disproportion  to  the 
infinite  goodness.  At  last  he  comes  to  perceive  that 
this  desire  for  personal  righteousness,  the  desire 
to  achieve  his  own  spiritual  safety,  is  really,  though 
unconsciously,  but  the  exercise  of  a  devout  self- 
love.  Our  morality,  our  will,  is  a  part  of  our 
nature ;  it  is  our  human  nature.  It  is  the  power 
which  every  man  as  man  possesses,  to  rise  above 
those  natural  limitations  which  bind  all  lower  exist- 
ences and  appear  himself  alone,  unrelated  to  any  one 
else.  Its  vital  atmosphere  is  self-love,  and  there- 
fore it  cannot  bring  us  into  harmony  with  God. 
But  God  never  violates  our  instincts.  He  does  not 
force  Himself  upon  us,  but  works  ever  to  incline 
us  towards  a  desire  to  seek  Him  of  our  own  accord. 
He  tenderly  guards  the  natural  instinct  of  selfhood, 
because  it  is  the  germ  of  the  Divine  life  in  us;  it  is 
the  mould  into  which  the  true  selfhood  is  to  run  and 
become  manifested.  Our  natural  selfish  loves  are 
therefore  made  interested  factors  in  working  out 
our  spiritual  destiny.  If  we  are  sincere  in  desiring 
personal  righteousness,  we  seek  it  by  endeavoring 
to  fulfil  all  our  obligations  to  our  fellow-man.  We 
cannot  do  this,  but  by  this  means  our  subjective 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  2$ 

love  is  gradually  bent  into  a  regard  for  society, 
which  is  an  objective  love.  We  learn  that  our 
interests  are- inexorably  bound  up  in  the  interests 
of  the  race,  that  we  cannot  become  personally 
righteous  except  as  all  men  become  so.  Thus 
morality  finds  its  fulfilment  in  the  social  senti- 
ment. 

The  spiritual  life  is  a  life  of  attraction,  but  the 
first  step  towards  it  is  by  self-denial.  We  must 
first  unlove  ourselves  before  we  can  love  others. 
We  must  be  primarily  of  use  to  others,  and  only 
subordinately  to  such  use  are  we  to  have  life,  or 
delight,  in  ourselves.  Finite  love,  so  it  be  genuine 
and  unaffected,  is  spiritually  harmonic  with  infinite 
love.  But  finite  love  is  only  genuine  when  self- 
love  is  subordinated  to  it,  when  we  love  others  at 
the  expense  of  ourselves.  If,  then,  it  be  the  law  of 
the  finite  intelligence  to  realize  a  life  in  harmony 
with  that  of  its  Creator  only  by  inwardly  dying  to 
its  own  subjective  tendencies,  it  follows  that  the 
subjective  element  in  existence  is  an  evil  element, 
and  must  be  overcome  or  set  at  naught  before  the 
creature  can  have  any  taste  of  true  being.  When 
conscience  has  taught  us  that,  it  has  fulfilled  its 
proper  function.  There  can  be  no  subjective 
identity,  but,  on  the  contrary,  ever  a  subjective 
contrariety  between  Creator  and  creature.  The 
only  unity  they  can  aspire  to  is  an  objective  unity. 


26  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

God's  love  is  for  the  whole  race  of  man ;  His  ac- 
tivity is  directed  towards  the  welfare  of  all  hu- 
manity :  if,  then,  our  love  and  our  activity  are 
the  same,  we  are  in  unity  with  Him.  We  are 
spiritually  creatures  of  God  only  in  so  far  as  we 
become  identified  in  affection  and  thought  with 
the  interests  of  the  Divine  righteousness  on  earth, 
only  in  so  far  as  we  spontaneously  renounce  the 
interests  of  our  proper  person  whenever  they  con- 
flict with  those  of  our  common  nature.  The  only 
righteousness  which  man  can  attain  to  lies  in  Ids  par- 
ticipation of  the  spirit  of  God,  the  spirit  of  universal 
love.  The  true  theatre  of  sin  lies  back  of  our  ac- 
tivity and  centres  in  our  fundamental  affections. 
In  these  is  the  seat  of  the  only  evil  known  to  God — 
spiritual  evil ;  and  this  evil  does  not  depend  upon 
inheritance,  but  besets  every  one  equally. 

Spiritual  evil  is  inward  exclusively.  It  does  not 
belong  to  man  in  his  relations  to  nature  o*r  society, 
but  in  his  relation  to  God.  It  is  the  feeling  that 
he  is  something  in  himself,  apart  from  God  and 
irrespective  of  his  kind.  It  has  two  forms.  One 
is  the  choice  of  evil  from  the  love  of  it,  or  the  vol- 
untary identifying  of  ourselves  with  our  nature, 
and  the  consequent  renunciation  of  God  from  the 
life.  The  other  is  still  more  interior:  it  is  self- 
righteousness,  the  acceptation  of  good,  and  the 
profanation  of  it,  by  making  it  subserve  our  own 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  2/ 

glory  and  not  the  glory  of  God.  This  is  the  most 
fatal  form  of  ungodliness. 

Instinct  causes  us  to  shrink  from  physical  evil, 
and  conscience  haunts  us  if  we  give  ourselves  up 
to  moral  evil ;  but  spiritual  evil  has  this  peculiar- 
ity, that  the  subject  of  it  does  not  call  it  evil,  but 
good.  It  is  not  death  to  him,  but  life.  He  may 
perceive  it  to  be  evil  through  his  reason,  but 
his  heart  tells  him  that  it  is  the  vital  breath  of  his 
being.  There  is  no  remedy  for  spiritual  evil  but 
in  belief :  not  in  the  belief  of  an  infinite  Power  out. 
side  of  us, — the  devils  may  believe  that, — but  of  an 
infinite  Goodness  within  us  which  is  striving  to  woo 
us  into  harmony  with  its  own  deathless  perfec- 
tion. As  Mr.  James  exquisitely  says:  "  His  [man's] 
belief  saves  him  and  his  disbelief  damns  him  only 
because  the  armory  of  the  Divine  Love  furnishes 
no  similar  weapon  capable  of  subduing  the  heart 
of  his  rebellion."  The  happiness  of  a  created  being 
must  consist  in  the  harmonious  relations  that  bind 
him  to  his  Creator.  If,  then,  these  relations  are 
falsified  at  their  very  core  by  the  creature  putting 
himself  practically  in  the  place  of  God  with  re- 
spect to  every  important  interest  and  responsibility 
of  life,  every  form  of  disaster  is  bound  to  ensue. 

The  antagonism  of  good  and  evil  in  the  physical 
and  social  spheres  is  a  necessary  part  of  our  natural 
creation.  Through  physical  evil  we  are  defined 


28  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

as  animals,  through  moral  evil  as  men.  We  are 
not  spiritually  hurt  by  moral  evil  more  than  by 
physical  evil  if  we  do  not  inwardly  approve  of  it. 
But  spiritual  good  and  evil  are  positive :  they  do 
not  exist  from  the  antagonism  of  one  another. 
When  we  have  come  into  spiritual  good  we  are 
endowed  with  a  totally  new  motive  of  action, 
which  is  the  love  of  God  and  our  neighbor.  He 
alone  truly  fulfils  the  law  who  regards  it  not  with 
a  view  to  its  rewards,  but  with  an  inward  delight, 
as  breathing  the  divinest  love.  He  must  fulfil  it 
from  life,  and  not  to  life ;  must  do  it  spontaneously, 
and  not  from  a  sense  of  obligation.  In  the  process 
of  regeneration,  a  man  has  a  life  of  obedience  to 
truth  in  his  intellect;  after  his  regeneration  is  com- 
plete, he  lives  from  the  inspiration  of  good  in  his 
heart.  Regeneration  means  coming  to  have  an 
interior  sympathy  with  goodness  and  truth.  To 
be  spiritually  like  God  is  to  undo  the  subjective 
inversion  of  the  Divine  perfection  to  which  we  find 
ourselves  naturally  born,  and  put  on  the  direct 
presentation  of  it  to  which  we  are  historically  re- 
born. So  we  become  allied  no  longer  negatively 
and  inversely,  but  positively  and  directly,  with 
infinite  power,  peace,  and  innocence.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  two  states  is  the  difference  be- 
tween being  a  servant  and  being  a  son. 

By  means  of  regeneration  we  realize  immortality. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF 

Post-mortem  consciousness  is  not  immortality.  Im- 
mortal life  is  the  realization  of  our  true  and  God- 
given  individuality  symbolized  by  our  natural 
selfhood.  It  is  the  prevalence  of  a  man's  inward 
life  over  his  outward  one.  Death  is  the  state  of  a 
man  in  love  with  himself  more  than  with  God  and 
his  neighbor.  To  pass  from  death  to  life  means 
to  cease  from  self-reliance  and  confide  in  the  Love 
which  is  infinite  and  universal.  Personal  salvation 
is  intimate  and  eternal  exemption  from  the  domin. 
ion  of  evil. 

But  the  regeneration  of  individuals,  important 
as  it  is  to  the  individuals  themselves,  is  only  inci- 
dental and  tributary  to  the  great  work  of  God  in 
humanity,  which  is  the  regeneration  of  the  human 
race  itself;  for  the  race  has  as  rigid  a  unity  as  any 
of  its  individual  members.  It  has,  metaphysically 
speaking,  the  human  form.  It  isihemaximusfomv, 
of  which  its  members  are  minimi  homines.  It  is 
evident,  then,  that  the  human  race  itself,  this  great 
human  soul,  may  be  regenerated,  may  be  lifted 
into  union  with  God,  and  so  become  the  basis  of  a 
new  spiritual  development  in  the  individual  past 
all  prophecy  to  foretell. 

This  maximus  homo,  this  man  which  is  to  be,  is 
the  controller  of  our  destiny.  He  is  the  Lord 
whom  Christ  typified.  In  him  will  the  Divine  and 
human  natures  be  perfectly  united. 


30  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

This  truth  is  the  hidden  Divine  leaven  which 
has  been  fermenting  in  all  history  and,  even  from 
its  rudest  beginnings,  moulding  the  mind  of  man 
into  conformity  with  itself.  The  gradual  enlarge- 
ment of  our  consciousness  out  of  the  personal  lim- 
itations in  which  it  begins  into  the  largest  social 
dimensions  in  which  it  ends  constitutes  the  sole 
veritable  stuff  of  human  history.  Nature  gives  us 
an  infinitely  modulated  key  wherewith  to  unlock 
all  the  secret  chambers  of  the  human  heart,  all  the 
infinite  possibilities  of  character  among  men ;  but 
nature  of  necessity  is  complicated  with  man's  his- 
toric evolution,  and  it  is  not  until  history  conse- 
quently has  attained  its  culmination  that  we  may 
expect  to  begin  the  realization  of  our  spiritual  cre- 
ation. 

A  living  knowledge  of  God  must  come  about 
gradually.  It  is  contingent  upon  the  advent  of  a 
true  society  among  men;  the  evolution  of  such 
society  being  itself  contingent  upon  a  previous  ex- 
perience and  exhaustion  of  the  patriarchal,  the 
municipal,  and  the  national  or  political  administra- 
tion of  human  affairs.  Whatever  is  logically 
implied  in  man's  nature,  as  a  created  and  finite 
being,  must  come  to  consciousness  in  him,  so  as  to 
constitute  him  to  his  own  intelligence.  Creation 
is  not  an  incident  of  history ;  history  is  an  incident 
of  creation.  It  is  the  fermentation  and  ripening  of 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  31 

human  nature.  It  means  the  continuity  of  an  iden- 
tical germ,  through  root  and  branch,  through  stalk 
and  leaf,  to  fruit.  It  is  simply  a  slow  but  unceas- 
ing approximation  to  the  embodiment  in  institu- 
tions of  the  idea  of  the  exact  equality  of  man  with 
man.  No  feature  of  it  could  have  been  different 
from  what  it  has  been.  An  infinite  wisdom  em- 
beds all  the  phenomena  of  human  experience,  and 
creation  exhibits  the  only  order  possible  for  it  to 
exhibit.  No  truth  is  thrust  upon  the  mind  of  the 
race  prematurely.  A  watchful  love  prevents  our 
receiving  an  excess  of  truth  beyond  the  wants  of 
the  life. 

The  race  has  the  same  development  in  its  degree 
that  the  individual  has  in  its  degree.  In  its  infancy 
it  feels  a  power  in  nature  superior  to  herself,  and 
thus  it  conies  to  the  idea  of  a  God.  To  this  God  it 
appeals  for  help  against  the  oppressions  of  nature, 
and  so  the  feeling  arises  that  God  cares  more  for 
man  than  for  nature,  and  by  implication  more  for 
his  human  soul  than  for  his  natural  body.  God's 
answer  to  the  prayer  of  His  petitioner  is  by  giving 
him  wit  to  invent  protections  for  himself,  and  so 
step  by  step  He  helps  him  in  an  inward  way.  As 
the  mind  of  the  race  progresses,  mankind  acquires 
the  sentiment  of  human  brotherhood.  This  is 
born  of  the  necessity  man  feels  of  the  aid  of  his 
fellow-man  to  enable  him  to  attain  the  lordship  of 


32  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

nature.  In  the  same  way  every  issue  of  humanity 
depends  upon  the  education  and  discipline  of  the 
human  consciousness.  By  gradual  steps  the  selfish 
principle  which  represents  the  finite  man  is  changed 
into  the  social  principle  which  represents  the  in- 
finite humanity,  so  making  at  last  God  and  man 
naturally  one,  as  they  have  always  been  spiritually 
one.  This  is  the  Divine  Natural  Humanity.  The 
regeneration  of  the  race,  being  the  slow  accretion 
of  experience,  constitutes  the  very  last  result  of 
human  history,  the  crowning  achievement  of  cre- 
ative wisdom. 

That  which  is  the  Regeneration  of  the  race  on 
the  human  side  is,  on  the  Divine  side,  Redemption. 
By  redemption  the  nature  of  the  creature  becomes 
finally  freed  from  its  intrinsic  limitations  and  eter- 
nally associated  with  infinite  goodness  and  truth. 
This  was  accomplished  potentially  by  Christ  when 
he  successively  met  all  the  temptations  to  which 
human  nature  is  subject  and  overcame  them,  but 
it  will  not  be  accomplished  actually  until  the  race 
is  completely  regenerated,  or  exalted  out  of  physi- 
cal and  moral  into  social  and  aesthetic  lineaments, 
which,  again,  cannot  come  about  until  man  shall 
have  renounced  his  selfish  instincts.  To  teach  him 
this  renunciation  has  been  the  great  lesson  of  God's 
providence  in  all  the  dreary  past.  Our  historic 
past  has  made  manifest  the  evil  which  is  latent  in 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  33 

the  finite  selfhood,  and  so  has  prepared  a  perma- 
nent foundation  in  experience  for  human  society, 
The  evil  thus  latent  is  commensurate  in  quantity 
and  quality  with  the  infinite  Divine  goodness,  and 
no  Diviner  mercy  could  befall  us  than  to  allow  it 
to  be  played  out  betimes  in  all  its  hideous  malig- 
nity. The  rule  for  both  the  individual  and  the 
race  runs  that  no  goodness  endures  but  that  which 
is  qualified  by  intelligence.  Natural  innocence  is 
destitute  of  the  human  element,  spontaneity,  and 
hence  will  not  keep. 

The  feeling  that  God  cares  more  for  man  than 
for  nature  prepared  the  way  for  the  acceptance 
of  Christianity.  Christ's  history  was  the  grand 
starting-point  for  the  hope  of  man.  Henceforth 
Paganism,  or  the  conception  of  a  God  in  nature  and 
apart  from  man,  was  at  an  end.  His  sole  abode  was 
seen  to  be  in  the  heart  of  a  truly-loving  man,  and 
His  power  to  be  exclusively  exerted  in  the  direc- 
tion of  his  spiritual  aggrandizement.  Christ's 
whole  divinity  lay  in  the  fact  of  his  having  no  in- 
terest apart  from  the  welfare  of  universal  man. 
He  had  no  will  apart  from  the  will  of  God,  which 
will,  of  course,  could  only  be  the  equal  blessing  of 
all  mankind.  At  his  coming  the  inheritance  of 
evil  had  so  accumulated  that  its  power  had  got  a 
greater  purchase  upon  the  mind  of  man  than  the 
power  of  good,  so  that  his  moral  freedom  was 


34  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENR  Y  JAMES. 

almost  lost.  The  equilibrium  of  good  and  evil,  by 
which  alone  our  natural  freedom  stands,  was  dis- 
turbed in  favor  of  evil.  Through  Christ's  life  came 
a  new  power  into  humanity.  In  his  soul  the  union 
of  the  Divine  and  Human  natures  was  perfectly 
consummated,  and  thus  in  him  was  revealed  the 
birthright  of  all  humanity.  Christianity  may  be 
styled  a  formal  proclamation  of  the  exhaustion  of 
religion  as  a  ceremonial  and  its  revival  as  a  life. 
Other  religions  swamp  man  in  nature,  are  practi- 
cally nothing  more  than  a  consecration  of  the  ties 
of  nature ;  Christianity  lifts  man  out  of  these  rela- 
tions, and  allies  him  in  spirit  with  universal  good- 
ness and  truth. 

The  social  sentiment  is  possible  only  to  man  be- 
cause in  him  alone  of  all  the  animals  are  the  uni- 
versal and  individual  elements  essentially  matched. 
The  only  real  fellow  that  the  individual  man  has  in 
nature  is  by  no  means  some  other  individual  man, 
— for  this  would  not  be  fellowship  or  equality,  but 
identity, — but  the  complex  or  composite  man, 
society.  Nature  quantifies  us  and  spirit  qualifies 
us,  and  the  two  exactly  correspond  to  each  other. 
To  the  primary  instinct  the  private  element  is  sub- 
ordinate to  the  public  one,  while  by  redemption, 
regeneration,  spiritual  culture, — the  terms  all  mean- 
ing the  same  as  to  result, — our  consciousness  is 
revolutionized,  the  private,  internal,  or  specific 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  ^N^JA^&s        35 

^^ii-"^      I"--"**"'" 
element,    which   is   the   specially   human  element 

through  which  comes  our  union  with  God,  takes 
its  rightful  place  as  controlling,  and  the  pub- 
lic, external  or  generic  element  takes  the  last  or 
ministerial  place;  but  neither  element  is  forced, 
the  natural  does  not  overrule  the  spiritual,  nor  the 
spiritual  the  natural.  The  pivot  of  this  great  his- 
toric revolution  is  the  life,  death,  resurrection,  and 
ascension  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  the  absolute  truth  of  things  there  is  no  vari- 
ance between  duty  and  pleasure,  duty  and  taste, 
duty  and  inclination.  Self-love  and  neighborly 
love  are  perfectly  united.  Fully  to  conform  to  the 
absolute  truth  of  things  constitutes  man's  destiny, 
and  the  accomplishment  of  this  destiny  will  be 
signalized  by  the  advent  of  a  true  society  upon 
the  earth,  in  which  the  principle  of  self-love  will 
be  spontaneously  subject  to  the  principle  of  uni- 
versal love,  and  universal  love,  subject  to  the  in- 
most ideal  of  life,  i.e.t  to  God.  Self-love  itself  will 
then  become  the  invincible  guarantee  of  endless 
peace  and  order. 

Society  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  Di- 
vine economy  on  earth,  meaning  by  that  word  the 
essential  brotherhood,  fellowship,  equality  of  each 
man  with  all  men  and  all  men  with  each.  The 
created  form,  in  order  that  it  may  fitly  respond  to 
the  creative  being,  must  be  a  unitary  form  express- 


36  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

ing  the  unity  of  each  and  all  creatures.  An  organ- 
ized society  is  this  form,  in  which  one  man  shall 
not  be  allowed  any  arbitrary  advantage  over  an- 
other, and  every  man's  nature,  whatever  be  his  per- 
sonal differences  from  other  men,  shall  be  alike 
honored.  Once  human  society  is  fairly  inaugu- 
rated by  all  men  becoming  endowed  with  an  equal 
interest  in  it,  then  every  man  will  be  a  law  unto 
himself,  and  will  spiritually  execute  justice  and 
judgment  upon  himself  whenever  he  thinks  a 
thought  or  feels  a  desire  of  inequality  with  respect 
to  the  meanest  man  that  lives. 

But  by  Society  Mr.  James  does  not  mean  a  herd 
of  men.  Society  claims  a  qualitative,  not  a  quan- 
titative unity.  It  is  a  perfect  hierarchy,  in  which 
each  member  is  sacred  with  an  equal  though  vari- 
ous sacredness.  It  is  like  the  human  body  in  which 
the  head,  the  trunk,  and  the  limbs  occupy  positions 
of  different  dignity  according  to  the  variety  of 
their  powers,  but  are  alike  essential  to  the  integ- 
rity of  the  body.  In  every  person  there  is  a  special 
aptitude  to  some  divine  end,  if  we  could  only  get 
'  at  it,  a  special  potency  for  some  beautiful  function 
which  no  other  person  embodies  so  highly.  To 
doubt  this  would  be  to  doubt  the  Divine  Love, 
would  be  to  suppose  that  it  did  not  design  its  crea- 
tures for  harmony  but  for  perpetual  antagonism ; 
for  the  more  things  resemble  each  other  the  more 


KtTNl 

N^/FOR 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENR  Y  JA ME$T~ 


they  stand  in  each  other's  way.  If  men  were  liter- 
ally equal  to  each  other,  they  would  have  identity, 
but  not  unity.  This  special  function,  characteristic 
activity,  or  genius  of  each  man  is  the  real  presence 
of  God  in  him,  and  when  human  fellowship  is 
rightly  ordered  we  shall  see  God  revealed  in  all 
men  alike,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest.  And  there 
will  be  no  room  for  envy,  because  there  is  an  exact 
proportion  between  each  one's  personal  and  intel- 
lectual nature  and  his  practical  power,  so  that  every 
one's  outward  fortunes  will  exactly  respond  to  his 
inward  desires. 

Then  at  last,  when  we  shall  have  become  con- 
sciously one,  each  with  all  and  all  with  each  in 
God,  we  shall  be  able  to  be  endued  collectively 
and  individually  with  all  the  potencies,  felicities, 
and  beatitudes  of  the  Divine  life. 

In  this  great  redemption  all  the  participants  of 
human  nature  are  included.  Even  the  tremendous 
issues  of  heaven  and  hell  fall  within  creation,  not 
outside  of  it."  Heaven  and  hell  are  mere  incidents 
of  human  progress ;  they  exhibit  the  unfettered 
play  of  human  freedom.  The  existence  of  hell 
marks  an  energy  in  the  earth  not  as  yet  fully 
wrought  into  the  tissue  of  human  nature.  That 
evil  should  be  separated  from  good  and  come 
under  its  permanent  though  unconscious  subjec- 
tion, is  necessary  as  a  preliminary  work.  It  is  a 


38  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

strictly  defecating  process,  a  means  of  purifying 
the  human  mind.  For  even  in  the  angels  self-love 
is  not  spontaneously  subordinate  to  universal  love, 
and  if  hell  were  not  separated  from  heaven  the 
angels  would  not  be  free.  Hell  would  suffocate 
heaven,  and  the  angels  would  preserve  their  pur- 
ity only  by  constant  self-control.  But  when  the 
reconstruction  of  human  nature  is  complete,  then 
there  will  be  no  necessity  for  this  separation  ;  there 
will  be  but  one  richly  unitary  life.  Behold,  I  make 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  saith  the  scripture ; 
but  nothing  is  said  about  a  new  hell. 

But  the  redemption  of  the  human  race  does  not 
mean  the  spiritual  regeneration  of  all  its  members. 
As  the  whole  race  is  the  macrocosm  of  which  the 
individual  is  the  microcosm,  so  just  as  the  two 
loves,  self-love  and  neighborly  love,  dwell  always 
together  in  the  regenerate  private  heart,  there  will 
still  be  correspondingly  in  the  regenerate  public 
life  those  who  are  in  self-love  side  by  side  with 
those  in  universal  love,  though,  as  now,  not  ob- 
viously distinguishable  from  them.  The  principle 
of  self-love,  which  is  the  principle  of  evil,  cannot  be 
destroyed,  else  the  creature  would  be  absorbed  in 
the  Creator,  and  creation  would  lapse.  This  would 
be  Nirvana  or  self-extinction.  There  is  a  race-des- 
tiny for  man,  but  no  such  thing  as  an  individual 
destiny.  The  individual  either  remains  what  he 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  39 

already  is  by  derivation  from  his  ancestry  and  the 
circumstances  of  his  own  position,  or  else  he  be- 
comes a  new  and  regenerate  form  of  life,  according 
to  his  own  pleasure.  Freedom  and  rationality  by 
no  means  give  any  of  us  a  title  to  the  Divine  possi- 
bilities which  inhere  in  human  nature  :  they  only  in- 
scribe us  as  candidates  for  such  title.  Where  there 
is  no  susceptibility  to  inward  life  the  Divine  bene- 
faction is  thwarted.  In  all  God's  dealings  with  us 
He  regards  the  interests  of  our  freedom  as  jeal- 
ously as  a  man  guards  the  apple  of  his  eye.  Good 
and  evil  must  both  be  presented  to  us  in  order  that 
we  may  choose  good  from  the  love  of  it.  Even  in 
a  true  society  there  will  be  trials  to  be  passed 
through  in  the  process  of  regeneration;  tempta- 
tions to  spiritual  pride  and  self-indulgence  will 
doubtless  always  beset  the  natural  life.  In  truth, 
while  as  a  matter  of  philosophy  we  may  speak  of 
the  finished  creation  of  God,  as  a  matter  of  fact 
creation  will  never  be  finished.  Evil  will  ever  be 
decreasing  and  good  increasing,  but  .God's  per- 
fections are  infinite  and  our  want  is  endless ;  and 
creation,  as  it  is  never  past,  being  renewed  every 
moment,  so  it  will  never  be  done. 

By  self-love  spontaneously  subjecting  itself  to 
brotherly  love,  Mr.  James  cannot  mean  that  it  will 
do  this  through  a  sense  of  inferiority,  because  in 
that  case  its  nature  would  be  changed — it  would 


4O  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

have  humility  which  is  the  highest  spiritual  grace. 
And  he  cannot  mean  that  it  would  be  hypocriti- 
cally seeking  the  welfare  of  all  while  it  was  con- 
sciously striving  to  make  that  welfare  subservient 
to  its  own  base  ends ;  nor  that  it  would  look  upon 
life  as  a  mere  give  and  take, — I  will  live  for  society 
in  order  that  society  may  live  for  me, — for  either 
of  these  last  would  be  a  very  unhandsome  form  of 
life,  unworthy  of  the  perfected  creation  of  God. 
He  must  mean,  then,  that  self-love  will  in  sincerity 
seek  the  good  of  society,  while,  all  unconsciously 
to  itself,  its  real  motive  for  this  will  be  to  secure 
its  own  well-being.  We  often  see  this  combination 
in  children,  and  those  in  self-love  will  be  in  a  per- 
petual childhood.  They  will  have  an  arrested  de- 
velopment ;  they  will  be  in  the  innocence  of  igno- 
rance, but  will  never  attain  to  the  innocence  of 
wisdom.  But  because  they  will  have  the  social 
sentiment,  all  manner  of  outward  good  will  be 
showered  upon  them.  For  our  freedom  is,  after  all, 
conditioned :  it  cannot  render  us  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  God,  since,  even  if  we  do  not  love  Him, 
He  loves  us,  and  makes  us,  so  far  as  our  range  of 
life  will  allow,  the  recipient  of  His  mercies.  The 
Divine  goodness  is  really  no  greater  towards  a  re- 
generate man  than  towards  the  greatest  devil  or 
degenerate  man ;  the  gospel  may  be  preached  as 
well  in  hell  as  in  heaven,  but  the  Divine  good- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY 

ness  can  only  give  what  the  man  is  willing  to 
take. 

This  reduction  of  human  nature,  or  the  natural 
mind,  to  Divine  order  is  not  for  its  own  sake,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual  mind,  as  a  guarantee  of 
the  integrity  and  permanence  of  the  spiritual  cre- 
ation which  is  wholly  an  inward  one.  The  race 
is  the  natural  end  of  creation  ;  the  individual,  the 
spiritual  end.  The  former  is  incidental  to  the 
latter.  Our  natural  consciousness  must  put  on  the 
true  form  of  life  in  order  that  there  may  be  a  basis 
of  continuity  between  the  natural  and  spiritual  ex- 
istence. 

The  distinctively  human  form  of  life  is  a  life  de- 
veloped exclusively  from  within  to  without.  When 
man  shall  have  attained  that,  the  Divinity  of  his 
source  will  be  properly  avouched,  and  not  before. 
Then  God  will  be  able  to  fill  him  with  the  power 
and  peace  of  His  own  life;  for  it  is  our  destiny  to 
have  God's  life  in  us  our  inmost  and  vital  self,  en- 
dowing us  with  sweetness  of  affection,  reach  of 
intellect,  and  a  power  of  action  spontaneous  and 
infinite.  In  the  spontaneous  life  man  perfectly 
loses  himself  and  perfectly  finds  himself.  Here  he 
can  say  what  every  true  creature  of  God  is  bound 
to  say  :  I  and  my  Father  are  one. 

I  will  hazard  one  comment  upon  a  point  in  this 
philosophy. 


42  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

As  a  metaphysical  presentation,  Mr.  James's 
statement  of  the  difference  between  Creator  and 
creature  is  perfect  [see  "  Substance  and  Shadow," 
pp.  412-418]  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  another 
method  of  putting  it,  equally  correct  so  far  as  it 
goes,  would  bring  the  thought  more  within  the 
reach  of  the  practical  mind. 

Unorganized  being,  or  God,  tends  to  give  Itself 
utterly,  and  finds  Its  delight  in  so  doing;  organized 
existence,  or  Nature,  tends  ever  to  preserve  and 
perpetuate  itself;  so  one  is  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
other.  In  human  nature  this  instinct  of  self-pres- 
ervation has  a  double  action,  corresponding  to  the 
dual  selfhood  of  its  subject.  One,  which  man  has 
in  common  with  inferior  existences,  has  for  its  ob- 
ject simply  the  preservation  of  his  life ;  the  other, 
which  is  purely  human,  the  preservation  of  some 
quality  or  love  that  he  holds  dearer  than  his 
bodily  organization,  which  he  feels  to  be,  in  fact, 
the  life  of  his  soul,  and  according  as  the  animal 
or  human  side  in  him  is  more  pronounced  will 
one  or  the  other  action  of  this  instinct  be  the 
stronger.  In  either  case,  however,  the  instinctive 
desire  is  to  keep,  while  the  Creator  spontaneously 
gives. 

Thus  nature  begins  where  spirit  ends;  the  natu- 
ral world  sets  bounds,  so  to  speak,  to  the  spiritual 
world,  i.e.,  as  a  conception  of  the  mind ;  not  in 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  43 

space,  of  course,  for  to  the  spiritual  world,  which 
is  the  world  of  affection  and  thought,  space  does 
not  exist. 

But  as  nature,  or  the  natural  creation,  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  order  that  the  spiritual  crea- 
tion may  be  begotten  from  it,  so  this  instinct  of 
self-preservation  has  a  certain  Divine  permission 
to  be  which  renders  it  innocent  in  itself,  though  it 
is  the  fruitful  mother  of  all  evil.  Iris  to  the  mind 
like  the  earth  to  the  body.  We  must  stand  upon 
it  on  penalty  of  being  otherwise  uncreated,  but  at 
every  step  of  our  progress  we  must  cast  it  behind 
us. 

When  we  have  a  perfect  society,  men  will  find 
not  only  their  lives  but  their  ruling  loves  so  much 
better  preserved  and  authenticated  by  the  care  of 
all  than  they  could  possibly  be  by  the  fussy  atten- 
tion of  each  individual  to  himself,  that  this  instinct 
will  perhaps  lapse  entirely  to  the  consciousness,  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  social  sentiment,  so  that  the 
inmost  spiritual  law,  He  that  loses  his  life  shall 
find  it,  will  become  the  actuating  principle  of  the 
most  external  natural  life. 

The  peculiarity  of  Mr.  James's  mind  of  which 
we  spoke  in  the  beginning — his  instinctively  see- 
ing creation  from  the  creative  side — is  strikingly 
shown  in  one  of  his  early  essays,  entitled  "  Prop- 


44  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

erty  as  a  Symbol,"  in  which  he  explains  the  in- 
trinsic significance  of  the  value  put  by  man  upon 
the  ownership  of  property.  Now  to  most  of  us 
'the  selfish  advantages  arising  from  the  possession 
of  property  ourselves  and  from  association  with 
those  who  possess  it,  are  so  obvious,  that  we  should 
never  think  of  being  puzzled  for  an  explanation  of 
the  estimation  in  which  it  is  held.  A  much  greater 
mystery  would  seem  to  attach  to  the  value  put  upon 
birth,  which  in  all  ages  and  the  most  democratic 
countries  has  been  able  to  hold  its  own  side  by  side 
with  wealth. 

To  Mr.  James,  every  event  of  nature  and  history 
symbolizes  some  great  feature  of  human  destiny. 
Thus  property  symbolizes  the  perfect  sovereignty 
which  man  is  destined  to  exercise  over  nature  ;  its 
unequal  distribution,  the  fact  that  a  perfect  society 
will  be  a  hierarchy,  not  a  literal  equality.  The 
church  symbolizes  a  true  society  or  brotherhood 
among  men.  Man  symbolizes  the  external  ele- 
ment, or  the  descending  movement  in  creation ; 
woman,  the  internal  element,  or  the  ascending 
movement.  The  king  symbolizes  the  power  of  the 
coming  man  ;  the  priest  his  goodness ;  the  artist  his 
spontaneity,  etc. ;  "but  it  is  the  fate  of  symbols  to 
be  ignorant  of  their  due  subordination,  and  to 
claim  to  be  the  realities  they  only  serve." 

We  close  with  a  few  quotations  from  our  author 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  45 

for  which  no  place  has  been  found  in  the  body  of 
the  article. 

"  The  final  cause  of  a  phenomenon  is  the  use  it 
promotes  to  something  above  itself." 

"  Every  lower  thing  is  involved  in  a  higher." 

"  Every  man  claims  to  be  estimated  by  himself ; 
every  animal,  by  its  species." 

"  The  devil  is  a  conscious  subject  without  any 
unconscious  object  to  control  him." 

"  The  ideal  of  the  State  is  to  reproduce  upon  an 
enduring  basis  their  lost  paradise,  while  that  of 
the  Church  is  to  show  men  paradise  well  lost  for 
heaven." 

"  Culture  is  God's  indwelling  power  in  man." 

"  The  tap-root  of  every  man's  spiritual  character 
is  the  conception  he  entertains  of  God." 

"We  rid  ourselves  of  physical  evils  from 
moral  causes,  and  of  moral  evils  from  spiritual 
causes." 

"  The  only  possible  damage  we  sustain  from  evil 
is  not  the  suffering  it  causes,  but  the  bosom-plea- 
sure  it  affords." 

"  Our  vices  and  follies,  collective  and  personal, 
have  wrought  us  infinitely  more  advantage  than 
our  virtue  and  knowledge  have  ever  achieved." 

"  I  am  persuaded  that  no  man  ever  suffered  an 
hour  in  God's  universe  without  reaping,  if  he  were 
a  good  man,  a  quite  endless  internal  profit  from 


46  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES. 

the  occurrence  or,  if  he  were  a  bad  man,  a  quite  end- 
less external  profit." 

"  A  man  contains  in  himself  the  stupendous  con- 
trarieties of  heaven  and  hell,  or  the  exactly  equal 
possibilities  of  the  brightest  spiritual  day  and  the 
murkiest  spiritual  night." 

"The  interests  of  our  true  manhood  are  our 
eternal  interests,  and  they  have  no  more  relevancy 
to  the  life  beyond  the  grave  than  they  have  to  that 
now  present." 

"  Man's  true  good  never  comes  from  without 
him,  but  only  from  the  depths  of  Divinity  within 
him." 

"  Our  life  is  always  deeper  than  we  know,  is 
always  more  Divine  than  it  seems,  and  hence  we 
are  able  to  survive  degradations  and  despairs 
which  otherwise  must  have  engulfed  us." 

"  Our  affections  ally  us  with  infinitude  or  God  ; 
our  intelligence  allies  us  with  nature  or  the  finite." 

"  Love  is  never  voluntary,  but  always  spontane- 
ous. Its  unconscious  element  controls  its  con- 
scious element." 

"  God  is  the  all  of  man's  life;  the  power  of  man 
at  bottom  is  the  power  of  God." 

"  To  give  the  feminine  element  its  hard-earned 
but  eternal  supremacy  of  the  masculine  element 
has  been  the  secret  inspiration  of  all  past  his- 
tory." 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  47 

"  Evil  is  unknown  at  the  heart  of  things." 

"  This  makes  the  eternal  distinction  of  man,  that 
the  entire  sparkling  and  melodious  universe  of 
sense  is  but  the  appanage  of  his  nature,  is  but  the 
furniture  of  his  proper  life,  is  but  the  platform  of 
his  true  individuality  ;  while  the  source  of  that  life 
or  individuality  is  itself  forever  hidden  in  the  in- 
scrutable splendors  of  God." 

"  Love — infinite  Love — is  the  final  word,  the 
grand  unuttered  secret  of  Philosophy." 

SOMERVILLE,  MASS.,  Feb.  15,  1883. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

LIBRARY  USE 

JUL  2919631  Rtc'OLD 
|r>|IULl(r64-5PM 

mi  2  9  1963  I 24Apr65 

REC'O  ? 


ro  LD 


JUN7    '64-lpwl|  WILL 

FEB  1  0  2003 


U.  C.  BERKELEY 


YB  23475 


3- 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


******  ,..; 


.,*.  I 


'i; 


